Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Fast women - Jade Edwards steps up to the Aston Martin Challenge

Car-racing has always been seen as a man’s game but you see a few women popping up here and there. British driver Jade Edwards is now lining up to trace in the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge.

This sport is not one of my fortes but from reading around the info sent over by her sponsor ‘Quote Me Today’ Edwards is a pretty formidable competitor.

She’s raced successfully in the Mazda MX-5 Championship – an interesting series of high-octane races in ‘low-performance’ cars. When you have racing bibles saying she ‘impressed’ you can read shockingly left male drivers in the dust.

And even bigger things are in store for the 24-year old now that she’s successfully test driven a GT4 Aston Martin at Portimao in Portugal.

At the time Edwards said: “I wasn’t too nervous in the run up to the drive, as I drove a GT4 spec car at Silverstone late last year, so I knew roughly what to expect. The car was awesome: good handling, excellent grip and a great amount of power! I felt at home in it straight away.”

So next on her list is this: “The Aston Martin GT4 Challenge is a head-to-head race in Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4s with 445 bhp engines, paddle-shift transmissions and the aero kit. The Aston Martin Vantage GT4 is the most popular GT4 car in the world with nearly 100 cars having been made and competing in race series across the globe.”

Her family bio will be familiar to anyone familiar with women competing in traditionally male sports. You can probably guess that her father used to race, and add in her grandfather as well.

Edwards started racing at just 15, and once again as with Ireland’s Katie Taylor in boxing, her main support came from her father before the officials saw what was in front of them. But unusually her older sister Chloe also races – some great photos on their website here.

I’ll keep an eye out on the races and let you know how they’re getting on